Parkinson's Law

"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."

This is a quote from a gent named Cyril Northcote Parkinson, from an essay he wrote complaining about expanding bureaucracies. And while regular readers are well aware of my animosity toward bureacratic nonsense and its mutant offspring (ie, well-intentioned but counterproductive regulation), today's essay is not about those problems. It's about Heggy's Corollary to Parkinson's Law: "There just ain't enuff hours in the day."

My problem is illustrated by the graphic above. (More about that in a minute.) But first I will add a couple more bullets to yesterday's potpourri list.

• Zits—Oh come on! I may not look it, but I'm over 35 years old. It's well past the time when I should have to worry about pimples and other adolescent curses. But nope; I look in the mirror and see zits on my face -- right next to the wrinkles. Geez. What have I done to deserve this? (And don't say "chocolate and peanut butter", because those particular items are non-negotiable. If the dermatoligist tells me that I need to cut down on the brussels sprouts, though, I guess I could follow through with that.)


• Zapatos—I'm thinking about retiring my current pair of running shoes. I used to keep track of the miles I put on each pair of shoes, and would generally comply with the standard 500-mile replacement recommendations. But now that I've switch my athletic logging to the USMS "Go the Distance" Fitness Log (flog), I've lost track of when this particular pair of shoes came into service. I don't run all that much, so I seriously doubt I've put 500 miles on them, but since I rotate them from "running" into "daily wear" duty, and my current daily wear pair is getting kinda funky and threadbare, I'm going to go ahead and make the switch.
  
  My question for you is this: How often do you get new shoes, and what is the trigger for making that move?
  
  And not that this has anything to do with anything, but I still remember the absolute shock and horror I felt when my best friend in high school told me how he spent his paper route money. (He also taught me how to fold papers and throw them with great accuracy, boomerang style...while sitting in the car window, steering with your feet while the vehicle idled down the street with the remaining papers in a pile on the car's roof. Ah, those are good memories. It's too bad that kids today don't get to learn about flinging newsprint onto neighborhood porches at 4 in the morning. But I digress.) Anyway, Mickey made pretty good money from his paper route...and spent it ALL on shoes. He had dozens of pairs of shoes, including some pure white ones, others with tassels, and even a few wing-tips.
  
  I had never heard of a teenage boy with an entire closet full of shoes. It was creepy. Girls? Sure...they're silly and aren't expected to know any better. But for a guy to own that much footwear, well...if I hadn't known him so well, I'd have suspected he was gay. But let's face it, even my gay friends didn't have that many dang shoes.
  
  I've always figured that you need one pair of good running shoes, one pair to wear to the office, another pair for dress-up requirements...and that's it. Of course, you also need hiking boots, ski boots, and maybe a pair of slip-ons for taking out the garbage, but otherwise, the closet floor should be bare. (OK, I'll also allow specialty footwear, like water shoes, ice skates, or racquetball shoes. But you know what I mean.)
  
  Anyway, the point is that after my 10K race on Saturday, these Sauconys will move on to a more restful life, and my new Reeboks will come online.


• Digital Cable—Comcast has switched to all-digital TV now, which means that I had to order a new converter box if I want to watch any television. The good news is that I'll now receive about twice as many channels as I had before. The bad news is that almost all of those channels are Spanish news networks, shopping outlets, or religious programming...none of which will make it onto my "must see" list.
  
  But can you answer one question: Why do so many of the Spanish programs I flip past seem to be modeled after Benny Hill? Is he to Latinos what Jerry Lewis is to the French? I'm just curious.


• Pants—I know I have a sewing kit somewhere in the house. It used to be in my desk drawer, right next to the paper clips. This made sense to me for some reason, but it no longer seems to be there. It may be in the drawer with the matches, candles, and wax paper...or it could have been buried in the dresser underneath the "special occasion socks". (Those are the socks that play Christmas carols, are printed with "Happy Birthday" in 7 languages, or have that argyle pattern that can only be worn with Bermuda shorts when you're dressing up as your dad on Halloween.) I may spend the weekend searching for it, because a button on my favorite pair of pants is about to fall off.
  
  This may not be a big problem. After all, when I wear a belt, the button is hidden behind it -- and it really isn't required to keep the trousers on. The belt and zipper seem to be up to the task by themselves. But it would just be weird to have a button hole without the corresponding button. I'm sure that people like Bill Gates and Snoop Doggy Dog just throw away their pants when a button falls off, but a poor guy like me is forced to be more frugal. Of course, locating my sewing kit is no guarantee that I'd be able to successfully restore the button to full functionality--I'm no Laura Petrie. But I feel compelled to try.

The point of all of this is that I seem to always be in a "rush". If I'm not adjusting cable boxes, applying restorative skin creams, shopping for shoes, or digging through sock drawers to find needles and thread, well, then I seem to be preparing lunch, deciding what to wear to work, or trying to figure out IRS forms. There's always something to do, and not enough time to do it all.

Of course, some would suggest that if I spent less time griping about my lack of time, I'd be able to use that time to do something productive. They may have a point. But where's the fun in that?

Anyway, I'm sure you knew these guys right away, but I'll still go ahead and explain the opening graphic for any Oklahomans in the audience. The first guy is Rush Limbaugh, who I think is a disc jockey or something...anyway, I understand that he has a radio show that's popular with young people. Next to him is the inventor of trail mix, Mikey Gorpbachev, who is from Rush-ia. The dude with the bass is Geddy Lee, lead singer for the rock group "Rush", and finally we have Geoffrey Rush, in his role as Casanova Frankenstein in one of my all-time favorite movies, Mystery Men.

So, with that, I'd better rush off to workout. (Hey, at least I don't have to waste any time figuring out which shoes to wear, eh?) If anyone wants to volunteer their sewing services, let me know. Otherwise, have a great day!